The Secret of the Storm Country

"Now, I am vexed!" she pouted prettily.

"Oh, then I'll go with you, of course," Frederick hastily cut in. "It doesn't make any difference to me."

The young wife felt an impulse to anger.

"But it ought to make a difference, Fred dear," she pointed out to him. "Why, you make me feel so small ... so insignificant.... I don't want to drag you about if you don't want to go."

Absorbed in his self-centered meditations his wife's sightseeing excursions seemed to him a perfect nuisance.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, dear," he apologized hurriedly.

Madelene got up and went to the window and gazed down upon the street.

"I know what we'll do," she stated, dancing back to the table. "Let's go to some quiet, cool place for a week or two. I hate Paris in the hot weather, anyway. And it'll be fun to be by ourselves ... and we'll have long walks.... Would you like that?"

The dark wave of blood surging into Frederick's temples made her look curiously at him. Why should he be embarrassed at such a suggestion?

"As you please, my dear," he interrupted her thought.

Madelene sighed. He did look ill. It might be the hot weather, but he had such a strange, detached manner most of the time ... as if he were far away ... or she was. Her mind was busy with the problem. She could not eat.

Frederick, too, was but toying with his breakfast. He was wondering just what Madelene was planning to do in the country. It would be even harder for him there than in the city. With Tessibel's face always between them, he could not make a lover's love to her anywhere.

An hour or so later, while Frederick had gone to smoke under the trees, his wife stood critically studying her reflection in the glass ... with but few misgivings. She was pretty, surely so, and very rich! What more could a man want? In the coolness of the country, Frederick would be better. He would lose his moroseness and give his undivided attention to her. She would make all the arrangements for the change without disturbing him. He should not be bothered a little bit; and Madelene grew quite happy again with the thought of having Frederick all to herself in some romantic country spot.

She summoned her maid, and for a while with the aid of the hotel officials, she sought for a place near Paris, yet far enough away to escape its harassing heat and noises. By night Madelene had decided upon a farm near the village of Epernon.

"We can get in to the city to shop, Marie," she told her maid. "But Mr. Graves simply can't stand the hot weather in town."